Interview With Author Thomas Østergaard

 

 

1. What inspired you to write this book?

Back in April 2019, at a local high school, I gave a talk about moral philosophy. More specifically, the topic was whether there are any moral truths, and out of curiosity, I began by asking the students that very question. It turned out that 75 percent thought that there are no moral truths – that morality is merely a matter of individual perspective, or feelings, or whatever is society’s most widely accepted rules about our dos and don’ts. Furthermore, many of the students thought it glaringly obvious that there can’t possibly be any moral truths. Even worse, some of them were convinced that it would be a hideous, intolerant kind of authoritarianism to believe, as I do, in moral truths. Worst of all, some of their teachers seemed to agree with these students.

 

Two things struck me. First, none of the students were able to come up with good reasons for their scoffing at the view that there are objective truths about right and wrong. Not that they saw any need to. When I asked them to justify their skepticism, they reacted as if I had asked them to justify their disbelief in vampires. Just as there are no good reasons to believe in vampires, there are no good reasons to believe in moral truths. End of discussion – or so they thought.

 

Second, these skeptical students clearly hadn’t thought out the implications of their denial of the existence of moral truths. I asked them if they believed that rape is morally wrong. Yes, of course, they all did. Well, I said, suppose someone says that rape is morally good, even a highly virtuous act. If there are no moral truths, how could this person be mistaken? Wouldn’t you have to admit that his moral approbation of rape was just as legitimate as your condemnation? None of the students could answer that question – unsurprisingly, as it is far from obvious how it could be answered, if there are no moral truths.

 

There are other reasons why I wrote my book, but this one incidence is what finally made up my mind to get started. There is way too much confusion about morality, especially, though by no means exclusively, amongst young people. We need more clarity about these matters. 

 

2. What exactly is it about — and who is it written for?

My book is a highly unorthodox (see question 8 below) introduction to what philosophers call metaethics, that is, the nature of morality. Ever since Antiquity, philosophers – and laymen, too, for that matter – have disagreed about how to answer the title question, and especially in this day and age, quite a few people adhere to moral relativism, or even moral nihilism. The book takes the reader on a guided tour through this debate’s intriguing theoretical landscape, elucidating the four main positions – relativism, non-cognitivism, nihilism, and rationalism – while analyzing and examining the many arguments for and against them. I offer, and argue for, what I take to be the solution to the problem, and I finish, in the book’s epilogue, by responding to the perhaps cynical, but also philosophically interesting question: Why should I (e.g. the reader) care about morality?

 

This is certainly a book for philosophy students at colleges and universities around the world, but I am aiming at a wider audience. I believe my book speaks to anyone who is (a) interested in philosophy, especially moral philosophy and deep, troubling questions about right and wrong, and (b) willing to read a non-fiction book slowly while reflecting on the subject matter with an open, yet critical mind.   

 

3. What do you hope readers will get out of reading your book?

I hope readers of my book will feel enriched in several ways, but for the sake of brevity, I will mention only four.

 

First, I hope the reader will come to share my view that moral philosophy can be stimulating and challenging while also being good, clean fun.

Second, the reader will hopefully gain a deeper understanding of the nature of morality, the nature of moral disagreements, and the possibilities for peaceful resolutions of these disagreements.

 

Third, I hope the reader will see the importance of giving reason its due in moral matters. To put it differently, when considering questions about right and wrong, hopefully the reader will henceforth be less trusting of both their own feelings and the moral opinions of other people. As Bertrand Russell famously put it: “Most people would sooner die rather than think; in fact, they do so”. Don’t be one of those people. 

Fourth, and this is related to the two previous points, I sincerely hope the reader will see the necessity of at the very least supporting, if not working, or even fighting for, morally good causes.

 

4. How did you decide on your book’s title and cover design?

Philosophy begins with questions – deep questions, often about matters of great importance. I wanted the title to announce – clearly, succinctly, and non-misleadingly – the question my book is trying to answer. The subtitle, too, was important to me, because I don’t want to mislead potential readers about the genre. There should be no doubt that the book is written as a philosophical dialogue. Thus, I had no trouble at all deciding on both title and subtitle.

The cover design, however, was a different matter altogether. How do you symbolize concepts like morality and truths? Although I thought long and hard about this, I never found a satisfactory answer.

 

Instead, running out of time, I decided to ‘copy’ the idea I used for one of my two Danish books (I am, after all, allowed to ‘plagiarize’ myself), though the execution was different, obviously. So, instead of having one picture somehow symbolize the concept of a moral truth, I asked the publisher’s in-house artist to draw four pictures, each representing a different aspect of the mess we humans have gotten ourselves into, and which we urgently need to find a way out of. The four pictures symbolize (1) heated disagreements, (2) (man-made) natural disasters, (3) war/violent conflict, and (4) poverty/inequality. I think the artist did a great job; if the idea itself is bad, I am the one to blame.

 

5. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for fellow writers – other than run!?

That is a difficult question, as I suspect different writers can be motivated in all sorts of ways. I doubt there is any piece of advice that is applicable to everyone, and if there is, by now it must have hardened into a well-worn cliché.

 

Anyway, for what it’s worth, my advice is this: When deciding what kind of book to write, don’t begin by considering the chances of finding a publisher and selling many copies. Make no mistake: To write a book is often hard work, and if your heart is not in it all the time, there is a very real risk that you will never reach the finish line, and then the question of who would be interested in your book is moot. No, your primary question should be this: How badly do I want to write this book, irrespective of its chances of being published and selling many copies? If you have a good deal of fun writing your book, your time won’t be wasted, regardless of the outcome. When I first sat down to write my book, back in 2019, I was far from certain that, once finished, I would be able to find a publisher. Nevertheless, from start to finish, I loved every minute I was working on it.

 

6. Were there experiences in your personal life or career that came in handy when writing this book? 

Absolutely. Quite a few of the many examples in my book are based on personal experience, particularly experiences with having conflicting motivations. A couple of the book’s chapters are mainly concerned with moral motivation – for instance, this question: What kind of motivational mechanisms are in play when we are tempted to do what we full well know we shouldn’t do, either because it would be morally wrong or against our own self-interest? When grappling with both a question like this and the competing theories trying to answer it, emotional maturity can be a big help. How do we acquire this kind of maturity? In great part by reflecting on, and learning from, past personal experiences with temptation, agonizing decisions, wrongdoing, regret and such like. I don’t think I could’ve written this book 25 years ago, not because I couldn’t have had the necessary theoretical knowledge – you can always get that from books – but simply because, being young, I would’ve lacked the many nuanced, lived experiences that have shaped the way I think about moral matters.  

 

7. How would you describe your writing style? Which writers or books is your writing similar to?

As a philosopher who is steeped in the so-called analytical tradition, I value clarity of both thought and exposition, and I dislike the excessive, obfuscating use of esoteric terminology you sometimes encounter in philosophy books, even in introductions. However, I also find it important not to ‘dumb down’ philosophy; I don’t want to take the seriousness and the rationality out of it, and I sure as heck don’t want to insult my reader’s intelligence.

 

Consequently, I try to write as clearly and non-technically as possible, while also respecting the inherent depths and nuances of the subject. Whenever I suspect the going may be a bit difficult for anyone not well-versed in philosophy, I try to be liberal with concrete, often quotidian examples that most people can easily relate to. In fact, my book is shock-full of such (hopefully) elucidating examples. I emphasize this, as I believe it to be one of my book’s selling-points.

 

I am not in the same league as people like Peter Singer, the late Derek Parfit, and Shelly Kagan, but I have learned a lot from these guys, and from others who write like them, and there is no doubt that my writing style is inspired by the way their books are written.   

8. How do you feel your book compares to others in your genre?

Well, the reader can certainly expect a highly unusual reading experience, as I believe my book is different – very different – not only from other books in the same genre, but from almost all non-fiction books, whatever their specific subjects. It was always my intention that my book should be ‘a different beast’. Metaethics can be a somewhat dry, highly abstract subject. So, I thought a great deal about how I could make the main problem, the competing positions, and the many arguments for and against the different theories come alive and appear relevant and engaging to the reader.

 

I wanted to take a chance and decided to write the book as a philosophical dialogue between four fictional characters. Great philosophers like Plato, Berkeley, and Hume wrote dialogues, some of them brilliant, but I know of no modern dialogue about the existence of moral truths, as contemporary philosophers rarely, if ever, write dialogues. There are reasons for that, of course, and I wouldn’t write a dialogue if I my intended audience were limited to professional philosophers. However, I firmly believe that the dialogue genre has a lot to offer when you are addressing beginners and readers with only a limited knowledge of philosophy. Allow me to quickly mention what I take to be two advantages of writing a philosophy text as a dialogue.  

 

First, a central aspect of all good philosophy is the demand for rational justification, and a dialogue is apt to make this clear in a vivid and concrete way: Whenever the dialogue’s characters argue their respective cases, or exchange objections, replies, etc., the reader is reminded that any theory worth taking seriously must be adequately supported by reasons. As this happens throughout my dialogue, the reader is repeatedly invited to think critically about the issues, and to make up their own minds about the plausibility of the various theories and arguments.

 

Second, and relatedly, my book’s readers can think of themselves as witnesses to a debate that, though fictional, could very well have been real, at least as far as the philosophical positions and arguments go. I suspect that, for quite a few readers, the human tendency to root for some ‛contestants’ over others will make things more interesting and entertaining than would otherwise be the case.

 

9. What challenges did you overcome in the writing of this book?

I faced two main challenges. First, as I have a ‘day-job’, I couldn’t work full time on the book, and sometimes a busy work-schedule meant that I couldn’t write for weeks, even months. These interruptions meant, of course, that my train of thought frequently was be broken. When, after an extended work-related pause, I found the time to resume my writing, it was not always easy to get back into the proper philosophical mindset. Without my passion for philosophy, I doubt I could have kept both my focus and my motivation.  

My second challenge was the language barrier. Born in Denmark, I have always lived here. I was taught English in school, of course, and since the English language pervades Western culture – films, music, books, the internet, etc. – I have certainly no problems understanding English. Still, to write a serious book about philosophy in a language that is not my native tongue was not a matter of course. To be honest, I was not completely confident that I could do it. Luckily, my publisher is not complaining about my English. I hope my readers won’t, either.

 

10. If people can buy or read one book this week or month, why should it be yours?

They should read my book because of the very troubling times we live in. Moral disagreements are a special kind of disagreements, potentially very dangerous, for all of us. They can be fundamental, and not infrequently they concern matters of life and death. Just look at what is going on in the Ukraine and the Middle East. Wars are being fought, and thousands of people are being killed, at least partly because of disagreements about right and wrong. We – that is, humanity – need to get back to moral basics. Unless we just give up and concede – mistakenly, in my opinion – that ‘might is right’, we need to understand the nature of morality, its fundamental importance for any kind of civilization, morality’s foundations, and how moral disagreements can be rationally resolved. My book sheds some much needed light on those issues.   

 

About The Author: Thomas Østergaard is a Danish philosopher, born 1970 in a small town called Ringe, currently residing in Odense. This book is his third book, his first in English. The Danish titles of his first two books, both peer reviewed, are:

Straffens filosofi – en kritisk indføring i debatten, University Press of Southern Denmark, 2018. Hvad er Livskvalitet? En filosofisk dialog, Forlaget Muse, 2024. The first is a critical introduction to the philosophy of punishment. The second, written as a philosophical dialogue, is an introduction to four main theories of how to lead a good life. Please see: 

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567870536806

 

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